Writing, babies, ideas, plans — let's see what hatches.

Posts Tagged ‘rejection’

I sent a bunch of stuff out recently — grant applications, a couple of essays, a magazine pitch — and now I’m waiting. Show business is supposedly the hurry-up-and-wait industry, but writing is rather similar. Although it’s more work-your-soul-to-shreds-and-wait. There isn’t all that much hurrying involved.

I’ve worked my heart out, and some of my other organs — my stamina as well — and now I’m waiting.

If you read my last post — I quit — you probably knew I didn’t really mean it. Or that I meant it at the time but I was more on strike than actually quitting. As someone posted on my Facebook page, “Good luck darlin’. You can’t escape what you are.” And of course he was right.

Last night I went to the Cathedral Crossroads program at The National Cathedral. There is a labyrinth to walk, a Celtic harp to listen to, and an hour-long program that might be about spiritual writing, dance, meditation or nature. I didn’t want to do much. Just sit quietly, watch from a distance and let the harp gently pluck away my feelings of rejection, rebellion, and vague embarrassment at having thrown a tantrum on my blog.

Share this:

Like this:

Last night I quit. No more writing. No more draining myself — exsanguinating myself — to take care of the twins five days a week and then try to wring out writing on nights and weekends.

What prompted this resolution? A rejection. Sent by e-mail. At 9:30. On a Sunday night.

During regular business hours I’m steeled for rejection. It’s a (sadly large) part of (pretty much) every writer’s life. But when I thought I’d check e-mail one last time before heading to bed I was not prepared for the ambush in my in-box. I actually wasn’t prepared for this rejection at all. I had a good feeling — a great feeling — about sending this particular piece to that particular place. But I was wrong. Form-letter-rejection wrong. So I quit.

Share this:

Like this:

A bit about me …

I'm Randon Billings Noble, an essayist and book reviewer, who is also the mother of now three-and-a-half year old twins. I don't post here as much as I used to, but you can read my published writing and hear my writing news by clicking the link immediately below (which will take you to my writing website, randonbillingsnoble.com). Thanks!

I’m thrilled to announce that my lyric essay chapbook Devotional is out from Red Bird Chapbooks! This brilliantly decorated star fold book opens to expose a simple beauty and the experience of longing in a series of personal devotions, its brevity and contemplative prose evocative of a medieval Book of Hours. Each section of Devotional calls […]

I’m pleased to announce that my author talk, “The Sparkling Future, the Eternal Present,” is up at Superstition Review’s blog. In it I read an excerpt from my essay “The Sparkling Future” and discuss the power of seduction, the price of betrayal, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, break-ups, beheadings, and what it’s like — as an essayist […]

It begins with a quote from the Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet — “There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.” — and continues in 69 short numbered sections. You can find it here: “69 […]

I’m pleased to announce that I have two “Required Reading” columns in Creative Nonfiction: “A Story We Tell Ourselves and Others,” a review essay, Required Reading, Creative Nonfiction (May 2016) Here’s an excerpt: It’s often said that no one really knows what goes on inside a marriage except for the people who are in it—and I would […]